How To Do Keyword Mapping & Why It’s a Game-Changer for SEO

Stop guessing which keywords to target. Or worse — going after only high-volume keywords where you hardly stand a chance.

Keyword mapping provides a structured approach to SEO, helping you identify which keywords to target and where to put them on your website.

Plus, it’s not that hard to do.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to do keyword mapping for your website like the SEO pros.

What Is Keyword Mapping?

Keyword mapping is the process of grouping related keywords together and assigning a URL to each group. This strategy allows you to create a thorough content strategy with appropriate keyword targets for each page.

It also ensures maximum visibility for your content by optimizing for multiple keywords on a single URL.

Why Is Keyword Mapping a Game-Changer for SEO?

Keyword mapping is the secret weapon of SEO pros, and for good reason.

It’s highly effective and offers numerous advantages for your online success. Here are some of the noteworthy benefits of SEO keyword mapping:

• Improved Website Structure & User Experience: By grouping related keywords, you create a logical and user-friendly website architecture. This makes it easier for both search engines and users to navigate your site. Users can quickly find the information they’re looking for, and search engines can easily understand the relationship between your pages.
• Reduced Keyword Cannibalization: Keyword cannibalization occurs when multiple pages on your website compete for the same keywords. This confuses search engines and can hurt your overall rankings. Keyword mapping helps you identify and avoid this issue by assigning unique sets of keywords to each page.
• Enhanced Search Engine Rankings: Search engines like Google use a complex algorithm to rank websites. Keyword mapping helps search engines understand the topic of each page and how it relates to other pages on your site. And the easier it is for them to understand your content and its position in the site hierarchy, the better your chances of ranking.

It’s also worth mentioning that if you do enough keyword mapping at the beginning of any venture, you’re going to set yourself up for long-term success.

That’s because a thorough keyword map will have so many venues for your content creation efforts, you’ll never run out of ideas or keyword targets.

How to Do Keyword Mapping in 5 Steps

Keyword mapping is relatively easy and straightforward. Here are the main steps:

1. Perform keyword research.
2. Pick a primary keyword.
3. Identify secondary keywords.
4. Assign URLs to each topic cluster.
5. Optimize your content.

Let’s explore each step in detail.

1. Perform Keyword Research

Keyword research is the first step of every successful keyword mapping strategy.

This process involves finding keywords that are relevant to your niche and worth targeting in your content (aka, ones you can rank for).

To get started, you’ll need a keyword research tool.

Some popular choices include:

• LowFruits: Best for small business owners because it focuses on long-tail keywords. It also has keyword mapping tools that will come in handy for this process.
• Semrush: Good for experienced digital marketers who need a comprehensive SEO tool.
• Ahrefs: A Semrush alternative that offers a low-cost starter plan with limited capabilities (includes Keywords Explorer access).

For our tutorial, I’ll be using LowFruits. However, you can follow these general steps using either of the other tools mentioned.

We’re going to start by locating the KWFinder tool in the left menu.

Then, you’ll enter a keyword you’d like your website to rank for.

For our example, we’ll imagine I’m a florist in Los Angeles. I’ll use “los angeles florist” for my search.

You can change the country and language settings to your preferences and click Search.

LowFruits will generate a new screen that asks how you’d like to access the keyword ideas it found.

You can:

1. Access all keyword ideas. This option requires you to manually select which keywords to analyze for SERP insights.
2. Access all keyword ideas + analyze high-intent keywords. This option extracts SERP data for high-intent keywords, which are keywords with buying intent.

I’m going to select the second option because I have a florist shop in LA. I’m interested in keywords with high conversion rates that will generate the most traffic and revenue for my business.

Once you’ve clicked Analyze, you’ll get a report like this:

We have 765 keywords, and over 60 have been analyzed in SERPs.

That’s a lot of keywords.

Now, we need to determine which ones will be worth targeting in our content.

2. Pick a Primary Keyword

In this step, we’re going to refine our keyword list.

We want to pick primary keywords that are achievable and relevant to our business.

When I say “achievable,” I mean keywords our small business can rank for. So often, it’s easy to be attracted to super high-volume keywords. (Been there, done that. Results were dismal.)

But unfortunately, that’s not the best strategy for most business owners.

That’s because high-volume keywords have a ton of competition. And unless you’ve got an established online presence and high domain authority, your chances of ranking for that keyword are slim to none.

I don’t want to sound grim, but that’s the reality of organic search in 2025.

The good news is that there are even more long-tail keywords that can bring greater value to your site. (Meaning, more qualified traffic and higher conversion rates.)

So, how do we find these almost too-good-to-be-true keywords?

With LowFruits, it’s easy.

When you’re in your report, you’re going select the SD filter and set the max to 1.

(SD stands for SERP Difficulty Score, which is the LowFruits metric for keyword difficulty. 1 is the easiest to rank for, and 3 is the hardest.)

Click Apply.

Now, you’re going to select the # Weak filter and set the min to 2.

(Weak Spots represent websites with low domain authority that rank in the top 10 search results. We want to find keywords with at least 2 Weak Spots because their ranking domains are easier to outrank.)

Once again, click Apply.

You should now have a list of keywords with low SD scores and multiple Weak Spots.

Now, let’s sort by search volume so we can prioritize our primary keywords.

To do so, click the Volume column. LowFruits will sort your report in descending order.

Our report now shows the keywords with the highest volume at the top.

Many of these keywords will share the same search intent, so we should cluster them to pick our primary keywords.

Go ahead and click the Clusters tab at the top of the page. This action will bring you to a new screen that automatically groups related keywords together.

The main cluster keyword is your primary keyword. (Left column.)

If you’re using a spreadsheet for your keyword mapping, you can create a tab for each of these keywords. (More details on this in Step 4.)

In our example, we have 8 topic clusters from our keyword search.

You would repeat this process for other keywords to identify additional topic clusters and primary keywords.

For now, let’s see how we’ll fill each topic cluster with related keywords.

3. Identify Secondary Keywords

At this step, we’re going to identify related keywords within each cluster.

This process is seamless in LowFruits because it has already done the work for you.

You just need to click any of the main cluster keywords in the left column, and LowFruits will show the secondary keywords in that cluster.

Here’s an example of the cluster for the primary keyword “los angeles best florist.” This cluster generated 27 related keywords.

Repeat this step with each keyword cluster from your report.

Once you’re done, you’ll have multiple keyword clusters for your main topics.

4. Assign URLs to Each Topic Cluster

At this stage, we’re getting into the part that people typically picture when thinking of keyword mapping.

You guessed it — we’re getting into spreadsheets.

Traditionally, keyword mapping guides come with spreadsheet templates for organizing your keywords.

But with LowFruits, all you have to do is click Download from any Clusters report, and you’ll have all the data exactly as you need it.

The above report generated the following XLSX document:

You’ll see that the left column has all the clusters for our original search for “los angeles florist.”

Sidenote: I like to use this information (primary keyword) to label my tab/sheet. This will help you organize your clusters as you add more sheets.

You’ll also notice that you get several keyword insights, including:

• User intent (column B)
• Total search volume (column E)
• Keywords within each cluster (column G)
• Similarity percentage to your main keyword (column H)
• And more

Now, the final step of working in this spreadsheet is to assign a URL to each cluster.

You can use any empty column or insert a new column to add this information.

In the example below, you’ll see how I put the URL column before the keywords in the cluster.

You’ll want to assign a unique URL for each of your main keyword clusters (friendly reminder: column A.) This means you shouldn’t duplicate URLs across clusters.

Rinse and repeat this process for each keyword you research. You can continue adding tabs/sheets to the same spreadsheet so all your data is in one place.

Once you’re done, you’ll have a robust content map with keyword targets for every cluster.

5. Optimize Your Content

This step is one of the most important.

After all, you didn’t do all that work just to let your content strategy sit in a spreadsheet.

Now, you’re going to use your keyword map to optimize your website.

This process focuses on on-page SEO, which is the practice of optimizing web pages to rank in search engines.

One of the main components of on-page SEO is keyword optimizations.

You’ll want to include your primary keyword in the following areas:

• SEO title
• Meta description
• H1 tag
• Subheadings
• URL slug
• Image optimizations

You should also include your secondary keywords in these areas:

• Subheadings
• Body copy
• Images

For an in-depth explanation of how to optimize your web pages, check out this tutorial: Beginner’s Guide to Content Optimization.

Learn more about this feature here: AIOSEO Writing Assistant.

Next Steps: Track Your Organic Performance

You’ve put in the work to create a robust keyword map and optimized your website for search engine rankings.

Now what?

The journey doesn’t end with implementation. Continuous monitoring and refinement are crucial to ensure the ongoing success of your keyword mapping strategy.

The best rank tracker tools make this process easy, putting key data and insights at your fingertips.

Take the LowFruits Rank Tracker, for example.

You’ll get a user-friendly dashboard that shows how your most important keywords perform in Google. You’ll see which keywords have improved or decreased in position and which URL is ranking for that keyword.

You can also view these position changes over time by expanding any tracked keyword.

Ultimately, Rank Tracker makes tracking your keyword performance easy. This ensures you can:

• React quickly to changes in search engine results pages (SERPs).
• Identify and address any issues that may be impacting your rankings.
• Continuously refine your keyword mapping strategy for optimal results.
• Stay ahead of the competition and maintain a strong online presence.

Final Thoughts

Keyword mapping is a cornerstone of any successful SEO strategy.

It allows you to create content with purpose and direction, attract the right audience, and improve your online visibility. And the best part is that anyone can do it.

With a little planning and consistent effort, you can implement a successful SEO keyword mapping strategy and unlock your website’s full potential.

Further reading:

• How to Do Niche Keyword Research
• Keyword Research Tips for Small Businesses
• How to Check SEO Rankings
• How to Set SEO Goals in 5 Steps